MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- Authorities on Wednesday located the body of a missing aerospace student in the wreckage of his plane in Talladega County, Ala.

Middle Tennessee State University senior Jeremy Johnson, 24, had been missing since Monday morning when he was scheduled to fly into the Murfreesboro airport from Auburn, Ala.

Talladega County Sheriff Jerry Studdard said the plane was found around 3 p.m. Wednesday near the Clay County line, about 50 miles east of Birmingham, Ala.

According to the Alabama Emergency Agency, a hunter discovered the crash site and then notified the Talladega County Sheriff's Department. A family friend then positively identified Johnson's body.

Capt. Roy Giorgio, a spokesman for the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary in Tennessee, said Johnson's family in Huntsville, Ala. had been notified. Giorgio said an investigation would continue into the cause of the crash.

"The National Transportation Safety Board will do the report" on the cause of the wreck, Giorgio said.

The Beech 19A Musketeer single-engine plane left Auburn early Monday morning and was expected to arrive in Tennessee at 9 a.m. CDT. There was no flight plan on record and investigators had to guess at his flight path to search.

Search teams were dispatched around noon Monday and failed to spot the plane at a couple of spots where they picked up signals from locator beacons, Giorgio said.

Rachel Herwehe, a friend of Johnson's and a junior at MTSU, said several of Johnson's friends were on their way to Alabama to help in the search when they got word that the plane had been found.

"He was planning on making a career out of flying," Herwehe said. "It's what he lived for. He was a pilot all the way through."